


The Five Times He Cheated Death (And the One Time Death Let Him Go)

by onlythefinest



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-17 22:15:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3545684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onlythefinest/pseuds/onlythefinest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nix manages to cheat Death at every turn. Dick wants to keep him safe. And Death isn't so much of a bad guy after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Five Times He Cheated Death (And the One Time Death Let Him Go)

**Author's Note:**

> will I ever write a Winnix thing not focusing on Nixon???? chances are v slim my friends. enjoy~

**_one_ **

Cards in Atlanta turn to drinks in Atlanta, and Nixon is pleasantly dizzy when he slides into the back of a cab. He is on a weekend furlough from Toccoa and he’s been using it to its fullest. The driver asks, “Where to?” and Nix tells him to head back to the camp. The cabbie tips his newsboy hat to the rearview and Nixon sees his white face for a moment, his gaunt cheeks and hollow eyes. But in a blink the cabbie is a tanned fat man with blond hair, and Nixon thinks he must have had more to drink than he thought. He misses what the driver says while he counts his drinks.

“Huh?”

“You a soldier?” the driver repeats. Nixon grins. The entirety of the 101st is proud of what they are.

“Paratrooper,” he says. “101st Airborne. At least I will be once training’s done.” The driver nods, says he’s known lots of soldiers over his life. Nixon says the only people he knew before he joined OCS were drunk Yale frat boys and he laughs, and the driver laughs and it chills Nixon to the bones.

Or maybe the shudder that goes through him is a result of the corner the driver takes particularly hard, and his stomach heaves. He grabs the door and shuts his eyes. “Oh, Jesus,” he says and scrambles to grab the back of the driver’s seat. “You may want to pull over.”

The driver asks why and turns to look, and pulls roughly to the curb when he sees his passenger is about to ruin his interior. Nixon gets the door open and is a set out of the taxi before he vomits on the sidewalk and his shoes. He leans heavily on a light pole, breathes for a good two minutes while the cab idles behind him. He straightens and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, wipes his hand on his pants and turns back to the cab.

“You alright, son?” the driver asks, and his cheeks are rosy and he sounds different. Nixon doesn’t think anything of it, his head still fuzzy and his stomach still rumbling. He slides into the back of the cab.

“Yeah,” he says.

“Where to?” the driver asks, and Nixon raises one eyebrow.

“Camp Toccoa,” he says. The driver smiles and puts the cab in gear and they’re away from the curb before Nixon can ask why he’d forgotten where they were going.

They round a corner a minute and a half later and are stopped by an automobile accident. A large ice delivery truck had t-boned a taxi in an intersection, had pushed the smaller car into the corner of a building. The taxi was bent like an Allen wrench, the back seat crumpled where it had hit the building and been crushed by the truck. Nixon’s taxi driver lets out a low whistle as he carefully navigates around the wreck. Nixon frowns, sees a shadow moving through the crash.  He looks at his driver for half a second when he comments on the damage, and when he turns back to the wreck the shadow is gone.

They reach Toccoa a couple hours later and Nixon pays the driver, gives him an extra five bucks and slaps the taxi’s roof with an open palm and thanks him. Nixon’s sobered up during the drive and he heads toward the barracks. He’s not surprised to see Dick writing when he comes inside. “More letters to Anne?” Nix asks as he sits down heavily on the end of Dick’s bunk. Dick hums and nods, and after he finishes his sentence he looks up.

“You look like you’ve been through the wringer, Nix,” he says half-jokingly. Nix laughs and runs his fingers through his hair.

“I think my drinking might have saved my life tonight,” he says after a moment, and Dick stares, one eyebrow primed to go higher.

“Oh?” he asks. Nix presses his lips together and nods.

“Yeah,” he says. He tells Dick about ungracefully vomiting on the sidewalk, and then about the wreck he passed. “If I hadn’t stopped to toss my cookies,” he says, “that taxi could’ve been mine.” Dick’s eyebrows descend and he watches Nixon carefully. When Nix doesn’t say anything else he stands.

“I think you oughta get some sleep, Nix,” he says, and holds out his hand for his friend. Nix smiles a little and nods, takes Dick’s hand and stands.

“Yeah,” he says. “Probably.”

 

**_two_ **

“We’re nowhere near the LZ!” Nix shouts to the pilot of their plane. The fuselage rocks with the impulse of nearby ack-ack fire, the cockpit lights up with the explosions of shells and planes. Nix doesn’t think about the planes. He thinks about the shells and how if they don’t get closer to the LZ they’ll have more than ack-ack fire to worry about.

“I don’t think we’re gonna get any closer!” the pilot shouts. “You should get back and I’ll hit the light so you can jump!”

“Not a chance!” Nix yells. A particularly bright explosion ignites the cockpit and for a moment, the pilot’s face is white and gaunt and hollow-eyed, and Nix feels his breath hitch. Then the light is gone and they’re in darkness until the next explosion illuminates the cockpit for a moment. But the pilot’s face seems normal and Nixon frowns and grips the edges of the cockpit door. Briefly he recounts how far they’ve gone, where they must be over France. He’s the Intelligence Officer, goddammit, and Death or no he’s not going to take his men on an unnecessary fight through miles of occupied territory.

“Now you get us closer to the LZ,” he says, leaned in close to the pilot’s ear. “I know where we’re at and if that light comes on before I think we’re close enough, I’m not jumping and neither are my men.” Another explosion rocks the plane and the co-pilot shouts something. Nix leans back, pats the pilot roughly on the shoulder and shouts, “Get us another mile in!”

The pilot looks up at him, and his face is flushed from the exhilaration. “I’ll get you as close to the LZ as I can, sir!” he shouts. “It looks like we’re not taking the brunt of the ack-ack fire! I should be able to get you pretty far!” Nix nods and pats his shoulder, gently, and looks through the front window. A plane to their left takes a direct hit and Nixon watches a shadow pass over the thing, darker than the night around it. He clenches his jaw and watches the plane go down, then turns and heads back to his seat.  

When the light comes on, they’ve gone almost two miles by Nixon’s estimation and he jumps without hesitating. He finds part of Item and tells them to follow him. They strafe the Germans and by morning, run into one of their armored divisions. They ride tanks to St Merè in style and Nixon finds Dick on the road and asks, “Going my way?”

In their billets for the night, Nix takes a swig from his flask and pulls his helmet off for a moment. He scrubs his fingers through his hair and lets out a long sigh. Dick comes in a few minutes later, tired. Nix gets up with a quiet groan and comes to sit next to him. He digs a chocolate bar out of his pocket, a souvenir from his last trip to Atlanta. He’s been saving it.

“Here,” he says. “I know you didn’t eat whatever the hell they put in those cans. _I_ won’t even eat that, and I’ll drink whiskey that tastes like gasoline smells.” Dick laughs a little and only takes half of the chocolate bar.

“Thanks, Lew,” he says, and Nix smiles and nods and keeps their shoulders pressed together. He tucks the rest of the chocolate bar into the breast pocket of his jacket and closes his eyes, leans against Dick’s shoulder and the wall behind him. In a few minutes they’re both asleep and Nix misses the dark shadow that passes in front of them.

 

**_three_ **

They’re standing in the church bell tower, side by side near the massive cast iron bell, watching the men move in rank beneath them. Nixon has a pair of binoculars and a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth. “Looks like you might’ve given the Germans pause when you took out that last patrol,” he says, lowering the binoculars to grin at Dick. Dick smiles a little. His face is still shiny with sweat from the short battle and the long climb back to the top of the church.

“That’s good,” he says. “Maybe’ll they’ll all turn around and go back to Berlin.” He smiles again and Nix laughs, shakes his head a little and raises his binoculars. He scans below them, pauses over shadows he think might be Germans hiding between the trees. They all turn out to be harmless, shadows of other trees or bushes or clouds passing beneath the sun. He flicks his cigarette out the small archway of the tower’s face and lowers the binoculars.

“We should get down and radio ahead…,” he begins, hesitates when he sees a dark shadow pass over the kettle-black iron of the bell. If he hadn’t seen the shadow before, he would have missed it. But he has seen it, and he watches it pass over the bell toward Dick.

Nix doesn’t speak, instead grabs the front of Dick’s jacket and jerks him forward. There is a loud _ting_ of metal on metal and a flattened bullet hits the ground behind Dick’s heels. “I think they found us,” Nix says, and he pushes Dick toward the stairs as another shot echoes. The bullet hits the bell where Nixon’s helmet had been seconds before, but he doesn’t see it. He and Dick are taking the stairs three at a time and it’s a miracle neither trip.

They rejoin Harry and the rest of Easy and walk together at the back of the company. “Good thing Jerry isn’t too good a shot, huh?” Harry asks, and he slaps Nix on the shoulder before he trots to catch up with second platoon. Nix isn’t smiling. He knows if he could have seen the German who shot at them he would have seen a gaunt face and dark eyes.

“Lew?”

He looks at Dick and blinks, realizes Dick had asked him something. He guesses and says, “I’m fine” and knows that must have been what Dick asked when the redhead’s expression softens. Nix tries for a smile and it feels weaker than he’d hoped.

“Really,” he says.

“Alright,” Dick says. They’re walking close enough their fingers brush, but neither moves. This is the third time Nixon has cheated death by his count, and be damned if he was going to let Dick get mixed up in everything. He made a silent promise to keep an eye on Dick for the rest of the war if necessary.

 

**_four_ **

“Fucking hell.”

Nix shoves his maps back into his pouch. Operation Market Garden has turned into Operation Clusterfuck. Dick is already gone, disappeared through the throngs of trucks and retreating soldiers. Nix needs to keep an eye on him. He takes a swig from his flask and the truck his helmet is on begins to moves. A young private grabs it before it can fall. “Hey, thanks,” Nix says, but the private is moving off with his helmet.

“Sonuvabitch,” Nix grumbles, and he trots after the soldier. “Hey,” he calls. “ _Hey_.” And he grabs the private around the arm.

He recoils like he’s been burned, because the private’s skin is stretched tight across his face and his eyes are black and there is a dark shadow across him. “Shouldn’t you be catching up with Winters?” the solder asks, and he’s still holding Nixon’s helmet. Nix looks back to where Dick disappeared, and when he turns to the soldier again the man’s walking away from him.

“Hey,” Nix says, and he catches up, grabs the lip of his helmet. The soldier turns, brows drawn and eyes wide, mouth pulled into a gruesome sneer. Nix jerks on his helmet and the man jerks back. Nix wrenches it free. He shoves it on his head as he turns on his heel, trots back through the retreating soldiers in search of Dick.

He finds him half-crouched behind a Jeep, unharmed. “Hey, Dick—“ Nix starts, and then something strikes him in the helmet and his entire world is ringing, spinning and he hits the ground. His helmet rolls off and he stares up at the smoky sky, blinks, and then Dick is invading his vision.

“I’m alright,” Nix says. “I’m alright. Am I alright?”

Dick is holding his face and Nix winces when he rubs his thumb across the burn mark the bullet left. Nix scrambles back, rolls and reaches for his helmet. He watches a dark shadow move across it and disappear toward the town, and he shoves the helmet back on his head.

Later, when Bull is back and everyone has calmed, Dick sits next to him outside their billets. Nix has his helmet in his hands, has been rubbing his thumb across the hole the bullet had pierced. Dick sits so their bodies are pressed together from shoulder to hip. He doesn’t say anything for a long while, and Nix rests the helmet on the ground next to him. Finally, Dick asks, “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Nix says immediately, impulsively. He runs his fingers through his hair, stares up at the stars. “Yeah,” he repeats, slower, more deliberate. He closes his eyes and rests his head against the brick behind him.

Dick shifts and Nix thinks he’s getting up to leave. Then there are soft lips against the burn mark on his forehead, and when Nix opens his eyes he sees Dick pulling back. Neither one speaks for a long moment, then Dick quietly clears his throat and stands. “I should…get back,” he says, vaguely gestures behind him. He takes a step back and Nix says, “Wait.”

He stands, hesitates in front of Dick for half a second before he kisses him. He isn’t surprised when Dick leans into the kiss, slides his fingers through the hair at the base of Nixon’s skull. Nix hasn’t realized how long he’s been waiting to kiss his best friend, because it feels like a decade’s worth of longing has just been relieved. When Dick leans back, Nix grins and pulls him in for another kiss and for a moment, Death doesn’t exist.

 

**_five_ **

Nix is at the rear of the plane, near the exit door. The eager young paratroopers had insisted he jump first. "You're a hero," they told him. "You jumped into Normandy. You were at the Bulge. You've been here from the start." And it is commendable, apparently, to have never fired your gun. But Nixon doesn't think about any of that. He's having a good time. These men are good people, eager paratroopers, naive soldiers. They don't know what's waiting for them and Nixon doesn't know how to warn them.  
  
So he tells them, "Remember to keep your head down," and they all get in the plane. Operation Varsity is a go.  
  
They're several miles from the drop-zone when the soldier next to Nixon nudges him. "You should ask the pilot what's taking so long," he says, and Nixon doesn't look at him, is too busy struggling to ignite his lighter. "We should've been there by now."  
  
"We haven't been in the air long enough," Nixon says, but he's halfway standing. There's no harm in asking for the kid. And then Nixon looks at him, and beneath the helmet his eyes are dark hollows, his skin pale. Nix falters. He's standing near the open door and the other boys eye him, and he clenches his hand into a fist.  
  
“You sonuvabitch," he says quietly, his voice lost over the roar of wind and the engines.  
  
Then the red light is on and everyone is standing, and there is a black shadow that passes over the rest of the boys in the cabin, disappears into the cockpit. Nix lets out a shaky breath and throws his cigarette out the open door.  
  
He jumps first. He hears the _thwump_ of his parachute, feels it jerk against him. He hears two more _thwumps_ behind him, then a loud explosion. He can't see, the parachute obscures his view, but he knows the plane's been hit. It takes a few seconds for its altitude to drop, and then Nixon can see it, a fireball spinning toward the ground. The paratrooper above him shouts. Nixon closes his eyes.  
  
When he gets back to his billet, he wants to vomit. He opts for a drink instead, and after he shucks off his boots he picks up his VAT 69. Dick appears in the doorway like a ghost. "How'd it go?" he asks. Nix tells him. Dick frowns.  
  
“Remember when we were at Toccoa," Nix says, "and I told you my drinking might have saved my life?" Dick slowly nods, mouth pinched, expression tight, like he doesn't know where Nix is going with this.  
  
“Well I'm pretty sure I saw Death," Nix says. "And I keep seeing him and I keep--I keep tricking him into not taking me." Dick's pinched mouth is a frown.  
  
“I think you should sit down, Lew," he says, and Nixon shakes his head, finishes his whiskey in one burning swallow.  
  
"No," he says. "Christ, Dick. I feel like I'm losing my mind." He drops the empty bottle into the trash and goes in search of more. He picks up an empty bottle, and another, finally finds one that's half full and fills a glass. Dick follows him. Nix falls into a chair and rubs his brow.  
  
“The plane got hit," Nix says, and he focuses on his amber filled glass instead of Dick. "I got out. Two others got out. And I saw--this private tried to convince me to go to the front of the plane and ask what was taking so long. And his face looked like a goddamned skeleton, Dick."  
  
Dick doesn't sit, instead loiters at the edge of the table. "I saw the same thing outside of Vechel," Nix says. "And in Neunen. And if it's not the skeleton it's this black shadow, like a--like a cloud passing under the sun." He spins his glass between his thumb and fingers. Dick is quiet for a long moment.  
  
“Is this why there've been problems at Battalion?" he asks finally, quietly, and there is no judgment in his tone. Only curiosity. Nix snorts and drinks half his glass in one harsh swallow.  
  
“Yeah," he says. "Yeah, maybe. It's just. I don't. Christ." He finishes his whiskey and pushes the glass away from him. "I feel like if I don't keep one eye open I'll miss him, and I'll do something that gets me killed." He stands, runs both hands through his hair, once back, once forward, and he looks at Dick with worried eyes and a pinched frown. "I don't think I can go through the rest of this goddamned war like that," he says.  
  
Dick moves to him, pulls him into a hug, presses a soft kiss into Nixon's dark hair. "You're not going to die, Lew," Dick says, and it feels like he genuinely means it, like he would cold-clock Death the next time he appeared. "Death isn't going to find you. I won't let him."

 

**_six_ **

Dick laughs when Nix jumps off the dock in his ODs, watches the ripples as they undulate from where Nix had flopped. He figured Nixon was hungover, or maybe already drunk this morning, because sober there was no way he would have jumped into the freezing lake water.

Dick thinks he sees a dark shadow pass over the lake and for a moment his breath hitches, and he realizes Nixon should have surfaced by now. He throws the towel on the dock and heads farther into the water, but a voice stops him.

“You know, I’ve been after this fella since Toccoa.”

Dick stops and turns, and standing on the dock is a dark man in white slacks and a half-unbuttoned red short-sleeve. He has a cigar in one hand and gold wayfarers over his eyes. He takes a long drag on the cigar.

“Three years,” he says, and he shakes his head. “Can you believe that?”

Dick doesn’t say anything. The man blows smoke through his nostrils and pulls the sunglasses from his face. His eyes are dark, glint red when the sun hits them. He scratches his brow with one thumb.

“Three years,” he repeats. “This guy’s managed to cheat me at every opportunity for three blessed years.”

Dick realizes the breeze is gone. The ripples in the water have frozen in place. The dull, distant sound of engines has stopped. No birds sang. The man on the dock replaces the sunglasses onto his face, sticks the cigar in one corner of his mouth. He stares at Dick and Dick stares back, holds his breath and waits for the man to speak again.

The man sighs, heaves his shoulders with the movement and his dreadlocks sway. He says, “I’ll be damned,” and chuckles quietly, though whether it’s at his joke or the situation, Dick doesn’t know. He snuffs the rest of the cigar out in his palm and the whole thing evaporates into smoke.

“Fine, fine,” he says. “You win.”

Dick blinks. Finally, he speaks.

“I didn’t say anything,” he says, quietly, slowly. The man laughs and shakes his head.

“No need,” he says, and he taps his temple, gives Dick a knowing grin.

Dick stares as the man looks down at the frozen ripples on the water. The man sighs again, sets his hands on his hips. He looks back at Dick, who stares up at him.

“Despite everything you may have heard about me,” the man says, “I do actually care. I don’t like interfering with all this true love business. It gets messy in the long run.” He looks back at the water and chuckles quietly to himself, shakes his head. He turns toward the shore, looks at Dick over his shoulder.

“When you get him out, tell him I applaud him for avoiding me so long,” he says. “And that both he and you can count on not seeing me again for a long, long while.”

Dick stares for as long as he can, and when he blinks the man is gone and the sounds and movements return in a rush. The water laps at his calves, birds sing to each other in the trees above, bubbles burst at the surface of the water from the center of the ripples. Dick lunges toward the deeper water, dives with his hands forward. The ripples gently splash against the dock, dissipate into the smoother waters of the lake.

Nixon’s head breaks the surface before Dick’s and he takes a gasping breath, sputters and spits water from his mouth and nose. Dick surfaces, drags Nix towards the beach and lays him out on the sand.

Nixon coughs, spits up more water and turns onto his side. Dick touches the raised bruise forming at Nixon’s hairline. Nixon says, “Christ” and clenches his jaw, moves to touch the bruise himself and Dick takes his hand. Nixon looks up at him.

“I think you hit a rock when you jumped in,” Dick says, and he holds Nixon’s hand, helps him sit up. Nix rubs the back of his neck with his free hand, touches the bruise on his head and winces.

“Christ,” he repeats. Dick smiles a little.

“I had a chat with your friend,” he says slowly, after a moment of silence. Nix looks at him. “He wanted to congratulate you on avoiding him so long, and to tell us we won’t see him again for a long time.”

Nixon is silent, stares wide-eyed at Dick for a long, breathless moment. Dick smiles, smoothes his thumb across Nixon’s knuckles. He brings them to his mouth and kisses them once, holds Nixon’s hand in both of his.

“I guess that means we don’t have anything to worry about for a while,” Dick says. “Not that I think we should start—“

Nixon interrupts him with a kiss, his hands on Dick’s jaw, fingers sliding back into his hair. He kisses and kisses Dick until their lips are tingling, pulls back only far enough to set his forehead against Dick’s and breathe a quiet sigh into the space between them.

They stay like that for a long while, until their hair begins to dry in stiff strands and the hums of the far-off engines die out. They separate when there’s a voice in the woods calling for Major Winters. Nixon looks towards the woods for a moment, turns back to Dick and smiles. He pushes himself to his feet and offers Dick his hand. Dick takes it, grabs his towel from the dock and he and Nixon walk, hands brushing, towards the woods.


End file.
